


Frantic Rush for Now (Carpe Diem Remix)

by via_ostiense



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: remixredux05, F/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-01
Updated: 2006-04-01
Packaged: 2017-10-15 16:52:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/via_ostiense/pseuds/via_ostiense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James and Lily, and battlefields and their aftermath.</p><p>THIS IS A REMIX - NOT ELIGIBLE FOR REMIX REDUX.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frantic Rush for Now (Carpe Diem Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [This Day Forward](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/2524) by Rynne. 



> Written for Remix Redux III (2005).

I.

Lily wiped her mouth with her napkin and set it aside. James fingered the little box in his pocket and drew in a breath.

"James."

Interrupted, he exhaled and smiled at her. "Yeah?" Lily smiled back briefly, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

"I've been," she paused. "I've been thinking." She paused again. "We've been together for a long time, now." Her voice trembled and she looked down at her forks.

"Not long enough, really," James said. "Only a year and eight months and fourteen days and," he made a show of checking his pocketwatch, "two hours and six minutes."

She looked up at that and grinned, a wide expression that started at the left corner of her mouth, and spread to the other corner, parting her lips and showing a flash of teeth on the way. "You forgot the seconds," she teased, before her face went solemn again. "It's been a long time," she paused.

He'd never get a better straight line than that; James opened his mouth to say, "Not long enough," as Lily opened her mouth to say, "Will you marry me?"

Silence fell at their table. James' jaw dropped and he stared at her; Lily watched him with a hopeful, slightly anxious expression that began to fall. Later on he'd say that he couldn't be held accountable for his response because he always lost his mind when Lily looked like that. At the moment, though, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"Bollocks!"

Lily jumped, and some of the people sitting nearby looked askance at him.

"I mean, oh, damnit, I was just about to propose!" He stumbled to his feet, knocking his chair behind him, and went around the table to kneel at Lily's feet, pulling the little box out of his pocket as he did.

Lily, at first pale and disappointed, began to smile as he opened the jeweler's box to reveal a gold band set with an emerald. Although it shone brilliantly in the candlelight, the stone couldn't begin to match her eyes, which sparkled, and then overflowed with tears as he said, "Yes, Lily Evans, I'll marry you!" and slid the ring onto her finger. Standing up, he pulled the most beautiful woman in the world to her feet. This close, with her face upturned, he could feel her breath on his mouth, and before he leaned in, he whispered, "I was about to ask you. Had the ring and everything."

She pinched his rear and smiled as he jumped. "Too slow, Potter," she teased. "You've got to keep up if you want to catch me."

He tightened his arms and dipped her - Lily, his fiancée - back for a long, slow kiss. The other people in the restaurant clapped and whistled when he finally let her up, breathless and brilliant. "I don't have to," he said. "You've caught me." She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for another kiss.

  
II.

 _Christ, oh, Christ_ , James thought, running through the woods. The raid had gone desperately wrong and his last orders to his Aurors had been,  _Flee. Get out of here, your first priority is you, and don't look back_. He crashed through the undergrowth, praying he'd make it outside of the enemy wards soon. The wards were two kilometers from the old farmhouse where the Death Eaters held their captives, and he'd been running for a short eternity. _Please, please let the others make it,_  he prayed, the words running through his head,  _please_. Finally, the hum of the Death Eater wards disappeared from his mind and he Apparated away to safety. To Lily.

  
III.

"To Higgins," James said, lifting his glass blearily. He tossed the rum back and poured himself another shot. Across the table, Sirius did the same. "To Matthews." Empty and repeat. "To Stebbins."

It was past four when James fell out of the fireplace. He crawled into bed fully clothed and threw an arm around Lily, curled up around her body, warm and alive. She moved in her sleep, rolling over to face him.

"James?" she murmured, voice fuzzy and soft. "James?" She draped an arm around him and wriggled closer. "It'll be a'right," she mumbled. "All a'right."

He held her tightly, clutched her warm, living body, and wept.

  
IV.

James paced back and forth, back and forth, clutching his head. The pricks of pain as he yanked at his hair did nothing to soothe his mind, but they felt right, a beginning to his penance. "Goddamnit!" he shrieked, slamming his fist into the wall. "Goddamnit!" He leaned against the stone, fists clenched, chest heaving.  _Should have been there, should have been there._  The ghosts of his men hovered at the corner of his sight, waiting, accusing.  _Abandoned us, you abandoned us,_  they seemed to say, lurking in the shadows.  _Can't save anyone, should've been there, abandoned abandoned abandoned--_

The door swung open, nearly slamming him into the wall, and Pomfrey stepped out. "James? James?" She looked around the corridor and jumped when he stepped out from behind the door.

"She's going to be okay," her voice was soothing, quiet, and he nearly wept at the news. "She'll be alright. The Vivisecatum Curse is exceptionally slow acting, and you brought her here in plenty of time." The nurse led him into the infirmary as she spoke, and her words turned into a distant drone when he saw Lily.

"Lily, Lily," he whispered, as he fell into a chair at her side. Her hand was so cold, so cold and so pale. He chafed it between his hands, staring at her, lying so pale in the infirmary bed. Her hair spread out like a bloodstain on the pillow, and she was so still, chest barely rising. "Lily, be alright, please, please be alright," he whispered. Her freckles stood out against her face, each one as distinct as the gashes that Pomfrey had closed and healed.

Her eyes snapped open and she tried to sit up, limbs weak and disobedient. "James," she breathed. "Oh, James."

He leaned forward and gathered her into her arms, careful not to disturb the bandages covering her arms, her neck, and surely her chest as well. "Lily," he wept. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I wasn't there." His tears trickled down her neck as he spoke. "You'll be alright, Pomfrey says so, it'll all be alright."

She moved her arms feebly and held his face, looked deep into his eyes. He looked into hers, and marveled at the burning strength he saw in there. "It's not your fault," she whispered. She coughed, muscles tensing as she clung to him, hacking until she fell limp. "It's not your fault," she repeated, her pale face fierce. "I chose to be there," and she glared at him when he would have spoken, "and I'm going back to the Aurors once Pomfrey lets me out."

 _It's not safe_ , he wanted to shout.  _I want you to stay here at Hogwarts. I never want to run up here carrying you while blood seeps out of your pores, never again_. But that wasn't fair, not when the Aurors needed every Charms expert they could find to go out with their field units. It wasn't fair to them or to her or to any of the wizards and the Muggles in Britain to keep her safe and away from the battlefield, not when people were dying and the Dark Mark was rising into the sky every day.

"It's war, James," Lily said, resting her forehead on his, "and I'm going to make sure we win it."

He cradled her in his arms and said, "Yeah. Yeah." This seemed to be enough; she leaned against his chest and closed her eyes. He thought of how he'd found her at the outskirts of Brindlewoods, screaming while her ribcage slowly opened up, left by the Death Eaters like a sign:  _We were here, and we have conquered_.

"I love you," Lily said, eyes closed.

"Yeah. Love you, too," he breathed, and he kissed her on the forehead.

  
V.

James slumped at Sirius' table. "It's impossible," he said. "I've been dreaming, and the entire thing's a joke."

"What's a joke?" Sirius raised an eyebrow and set a beer in front of him. "No, let me guess," he said, sitting down and swigging from his own bottle. "Lily's not marrying you, you're not getting married to her, and the whole being engaged thing is something you've hallucinated."

James, about to say just that, closed his mouth and nodded. "Pretty much."

"Christ, James," Sirius said. "Wake up and realize it, man. You're getting married, and there's no way she's going to let you back out now." He grinned mischievously and slouched in his chair as he added, "Now that she's finally lost her mind and accepted you."

James sighed and rested his forehead in his hands. "I don't know, Sirius, I don't know." He eyed the beer and pushed it away. "Is this really the time to be getting married? We're in the middle of the war," and his stomach knotted up as he remembered Lily, lying in the brambles with her blood turning the dirt into mud. "It's not, it's, I don't want to lose her." The words came out in a rush, and he pulled at his hair.

"Hey. Look at me." Sirius' voice was quiet and unusually serious. He reached across the table and lifted James' chin up with his fingers until he was looking into his eyes. "You're right, it's a war. But that means it's all the more important that you seize what joy you can with Lily. Now, not in the future or after the war or when everything's settled down, because the one thing you're right about is that any of us could lose each other tomorrow." He pushed the beer back at James. "Have some of that. Or I've got rum if you want to get pissed."

"No. Lily doesn't like it," James answered, and he studied his hands. Three new scars were livid across his knuckles, reminders of his last encounter with the Death Eaters outside of London. They were getting bolder; he'd skirmished with them right beneath one of the enormous Muggle roads, with automotorcarbilethings zipping by as they battled.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Maybe I should rethink my advice if married life's going to turn you into a stiff." He paused, considering his words, and when he spoke, he spoke slowly, releasing the syllables quietly, one at a time. "James, if she dies, or is captured, or loses her soul," a distinct possibility, with the Dementors loose, "it won't make it any better to have not married her. You'll only regret that you never did."

James looked up at his friend. "I know that," he said finally. "And I know that she's not in any more or less danger, whether or not I stay away from her." He exhaled slowly. "I just wish, you know," and his voice trailed off into silence.

"I know," Sirius said, and he looked as if he was remembering his own nightmare memories of battles and their aftermath, of finding the dead and finding the survivors.

"Will you be my best man, then?" James asked, trying to drive the shadows away from Sirius' face.

"Of course," said Sirius, smiling slightly. "Be insulting if you asked anyone else."

  
VI.

The wedding day was a blur, a long stretch of nerves and a scratchy collar and too many moments until he could lift the veil and kiss her, reassure himself that this was real, that they were getting married, him and Lily Potter, that she wanted him and loved him and that they'd be together until death do them part. She was radiant, eyes shining and overflowing with tears, and his were, too, and they kissed and their tears mingled to plipplop onto his lapels.

"I love you," he breathed as he embraced her, warm and alive. He pushed away thoughts of the future and concentrated on the joy in her voice as she replied,

"I love you, too," and wound her arms around his neck. The bouquet got caught in his hair and his glasses bumped against her nose, and he saved the sensations in his memories, along with the feel of her lips against his and the overwhelming love and joy he felt, knowing that whatever else happened, he had these, and he had Lily Potter, and she had him. They knew the seriousness of their vows, that "sickness and health" referred to more than the usual ailments, that "failure and triumph" could destroy them, that death might part them sooner than they hoped. But for now, they were alive and married, and James held Lily tightly, prolonging the moment until Sirius and Remus began to make rude comments about prying them apart.


End file.
